Cape Agulhas, Winery and Hermanus

These pictures don't do justice to the beautiful big sky vistas of the area.

The lighthouse at the cape.

Colin, my original tent mate David from Switzerland and me.

The whole group minus Jay.

At the very southern end of Africa.

Irish David.

Lunch and a sampling.

The coast at Hermanus.

Friday, December 15^th.

It was very cold during the night. I don't know if it was because Nathan had upgraded to a room but the tent was cold. I got up at 1:30 for a pee and put on long pants, an extra shirt and a jumper. Even then I was cool for the rest of the night. But it quickly warmed up when the sun came up and I was packing up.

We had the luxury of a bit of a late morning take off – 8:00. However, we made a wrong turn on the dirt road leaving the Round The Bend camp and Colin had to make a ten point turn with the truck on a single lane dirt road to get back on track. That set us back about a half hour.

Then we drove towards the coast. We stopped at Cape Agulhas, which is the southern most point of the continent of Africa. Most people think that Cape Hope is, but it is not. That is actually the 'southern most westerly point' of Africa. This is the point where the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic meet. The point is quite rugged and at the moment they are fixing the road and building a monument. We posed for pictures at the marker. Unfortunately Jay was not there for the photo.

Then we drove to a small town for a break. I asked Jay to take Colin into the shop so I could talk to the group about the tipping guidelines to try to get everyone on the same page. This is always a contentious issue and often gets left to the last minute. Some people are comfortable tipping and others, especially young people on budgets are not. But the trip notes always mention that tips are more or less expected, especially if you are happy with the trip. I know from my experiences that the guides and drivers do depend on the tips, as their pay is not necessarily the best, especially when you consider they are on duty 24 hours a day for the length of the trip. They give up their whole life until the trip is completed. Plus they are not full time employees of either Intrepid or Gadventures and if there are no trips (because of the rainy season, or lack of bookings) they don't work and don't get paid. All of the guides and drivers I have had have been excellent, dedicated people who are great advocates for their respective company and overlanding in Africa. Therefore, I feel that the guidline of $4-$6 per day per person is not unwarranted. I also believe that all the money should be put into an envelop from the group rather than individual tips. That way it is anonymous and from the whole group.

The next stop was about two hours later at the Walker Bay Vineyards and Birkenhead Estate and Brewery. We had lunch here and a wine tasting or a craft beer tasting. I opted for the beer, six small glasses which were all quite nice except the last which tasted like Hoegaarden.

After that we drove to the seaside town of Hermanus where our last campground of the trip is located. We pitched our tents and cleaned up in preparation for our last meal together.

We drove back into Hermanus and spent an hour wandering around the seashore from which you can often see whales, but unfortunately we were out of season. Then we met at the Lemon Batta Seafood Restaurant. I had an excellent seared sesame crusted tuna steak for $15. We wanted to do the tip presentations to Jay and Colin at the restaurant but it was too noisy, so after dinner we drove back to camp and made the presentations to them on the truck. I presented to Colin and Nathan to Jay and Joan sang a song she wrote for them about the trip. It's funny that we were the three teachers. Both Colin and Jay thanked us for being a great group and making their jobs easy and Colin said that by us coming to Africa and spending our money and buying things we are helping to improve the lives of some Africans. He also said that the money we gave him would go along way to help him and his family when the rest of the extended family drops in unannounced over the holidays. It is sad to be ending the trip but we still have one more drive in the morning.